


The Youngest Angel

by BlackCatRunning



Category: Supernatural
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Caretaking, Cas blesses Dean almost obsessively, Castiel does his best impression of a lost duckling, Clinging, Coughing, Destiel - Freeform, Fever, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Impala, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam is a Little Shit, Sam probably suspects, Season/Series 05, Sick Castiel, Sick Dean Winchester, Sickfic, Sneezing, Swearing, Worried Castiel, clingyness, every fluff, it's light destiel, they make goo goo eyes at one another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 09:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5000329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCatRunning/pseuds/BlackCatRunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PROMPT: Dean has a cold and Cas gets SUPER clingy 'cause he's worried. Like, can't keep his hands off the guy kind of clingy. Naturally, he doesn't understand how germs work and that results in...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Dean

**Author's Note:**

> PROMPT: Dean has a cold and Cas gets SUPER clingy 'cause he's worried. Like, can't keep his hands off the guy kind of clingy. Naturally, he doesn't understand how germs work and that results in...
> 
> WARNINGS: Swearing (of course), some fluffy slash business/fluff, sickfic, possible spoilers up to season 6 (like, between 5.21 and 5.22)

Dean can’t remember how it started. He remembers when: after the issue with Pestilence. And he remembers where: in the Impala. It began with either a runny nose or swollen sinuses, something like that, but he knows for sure the moment the nagging tickle rises to a need that he’s fucked.

A near silent inhale, and then a spluttering sneeze. They were always wet, rough, explosive, and sudden. Sometimes _he_ didn’t even know they were coming, let alone someone next to him. But Sam knows his brother and that was a sick Dean sneeze.

“Great,” Sam sighs. Because not only does this mean Dean is getting sick during the Apocalypse, right on the brink of Lucifer’s big show in Detroit and the plan with the cage, but this means Dean is _getting sick._ His big brother’s a giant mess when he’s sick, alternating between whiny man-child and overly masculine displays of denial.

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean says. Lovely – overly macho guy it is.

“God bless you, Dean.”

Aside from being woefully late for a blessing, it scares the shit out of the brothers. Both of them jump; both of them are sheepish afterward. They forgot Dean’s human-angel is sitting on the back-seat bench, he was so quiet. His gravelly, somber tone slicing the silence chills them for a moment.

“Cas, don’t _do_ that,” Dean growls, trying to calm his throbbing chest. Sam takes a couple breaths and settles his hands on his knees. While they can’t see the angel, the following pause probably means he was pulling one of his hurt, pleading expressions.

“But… I’ve been here since we started driving.” He speaks haltingly, his rough baritone scraping. “And I was offering a polite response to your sneeze. Was it…did I say it incorrectly?”

Full-mojo Angel of the Lord Castiel is somewhat douchy, aloof, and apt to disappear and reappear without warning. Drained-batteries Cas is actually a little sensitive, clueless, somewhat pissy, and clingy as all hell. Dean catches him in the review mirror, frowning down at his lap with a concentrating expression. Sam can’t see it, but knows it’s there.

“No, you said it right,” Dean says, sounding defeated. “Sorry, ‘m just— _Ha’gitshhh!”_

“God bless you, Dean.”

“He hasn’t done that in a while.” He’s going for humor, but there’s a heaviness in the back of his nose and throat that is signaling something sinister. Sam’s already rolling his eyes over toward his brother, unimpressed. Dean glares forward at the road. Castiel’s eyebrows furrow further.

“Your voice sounds slightly congested,” he remarks. Sam responds before Dean can offer any rebuttal.

“He’s getting sick—”

“Like hell—”

“—which is just peachy—”

“—I am. I feel fine.”

“—since Detroit is pretty close.”

Castiel watches the two of them like spectators watch a tennis match, and his eyes narrow when Dean ducks with another uncovered sneeze. The angel sits forward a little, posture erect, and Sam can see his protect-the-Righteous-Man programming ratcheting up to high alert. Sam slumps down in his seat a little, huffing with a smirky smile. This’ll be fun.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Cas, will you ged oud of by ass please?”

Sam hunches over his computer, pretending to surf for an interesting website while he watches the awkward tango his brother and the angel are dancing. From the moment they got out of the car and into the motel, Cas had trailed Dean like a lost duckling who imprinted on an unamused passerby.

Dean tried everything to shake him—he’d gone into the bathroom and slammed the door, but Castiel just waited right outside, staring puzzled at the wood, until it opened again; Dean had opted to go out for food, but Cas had followed him to the door and cautioned him to consider his health and energy levels; once, he even tried stopping very suddenly while walking, and had stiffened with the angel bumped into his back. The whole thing was mildly entertaining until two things happened: 1) Sam got hungry, and 2) Dean got worse. This is where they are currently.

“Cas, seriously buddy, I deed ad leasd a few damb inches –…” Dean flinches as he feels the slow, prickling rise of a sneeze in the back of his nostrils. Sam glances up from his screen. When his brother actually starts hitching before sneezes, it usually means whatever virus that swung by is in for the long haul. Briefly his eyes fall to Castiel, who is now in front of Dean and up on his tip toes to get on eye-level.

Dean’s eyes are clamped shut, nose twitching like a rabbit’s as the sneeze torments him. His soft, hitching breaths barely make a sound, but Sam can see it coming a mile away. And the angel, the lovable bonehead, is directly in the line of fire.

“Castiel, you might want to – ”

Too late. Dean sneezes and Cas stands blinking in its aftermath. Not much really disgusts the angel, save for blasphemy or needless suffering, so a little spray of Dean’s bodily fluids hardly phases him. Sam recalls the angel once clutching a human heart in his hands with no gloves in a morgue, wiping the excess blood afterward on the edge of a plastic container to merely shave off clots. Makes sense that getting sneezed on doesn’t even get a flinch out of him. Dean, on the contrary, is affronted. Mortified, more like.

“Cas, whad the hell?!” But before he can educate the angel on any sense of hygiene or apologize, he staggers forward into the smaller man with another powerful sneeze. Had Dean been a little more lucid and less of a sick, groggy mess, he probably would be embarrassed. His face practically ended up in Castiel’s neck.

Castiel’s poker face doesn’t fail him. There is a trench of his brows and a comically awkward moment where he keeps his arms out to the sides because he doesn’t know what to do with them. But then, much to Sam’s tickled surprise, Cas brings his arms around Dean in a rigid embrace.

“Don’t worry, Dean,” he grumbles, voice very low and flat but still radiating a confused sort of comfort. “I cannot heal you expediently, but I will do my best with my current level of—”

“Ooookay, you know what? I’m going to get food,” Sam says. He’d give the two of them some alone time. His brother’s sick, yes, but it’s looking like nothing but a head cold that some rest and soup won’t fix. At least, Sam hopes. By now Dean is trying to distangle himself from his angel’s arms, pawing at his nose all the while. It’s running in that way noses run—where no amount of arm-swiping can stem the flood. Sam purses his lips as he gathers his wallet and keys. Dean rounds on him, breaking free of Cas’s embrace.

“Sambby,” he whispers low, looking like a ruffled, cornered baby animal that’s receiving too much affection from a loving child. Sam’s eyes flick to Castiel, who still has his arms extended like he hasn’t accepted Dean’s absence yet, and then they return to Dean.

“Man, just relax,” Sam says, giving an easy grin. “You’re in good hands.”

Dean just stares, green eyes wide, as he feels the heat of Castiel’s body just behind him. Suddenly, he discovers the angel does actually breathe occasionally when there is a luke-warm breeze on his neck.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

It’s not that Dean doesn’t… _like_ Castiel. He’s a great friend, practically one of his best. One of his only. He just isn’t sure what to do with this level of clinginess. It had only gotten worse after Sam left because Castiel realized there wasn’t a single line in Dean’s corner of defense. Instead of behind him, now blue eyes were constantly in front of him, gazing on him with a mixture of mystification, pity, and deep concern. It was more emotion Dean had seen on his face in…well, forever.

Sam had gone off to an actual super market for something not fast-food and left Castiel in charge, equipped with the flu-kit they kept in the trunk for sick days. While relieved to have some NyQuil and gratuitous tissues, Dean was not pleased with Sam’s decisions. He had declared the angel king and handed him an arsenal. No good could come from this.

Except…

They are watching the crappy motel television, side by side on a bed with Dean showered and cuddly under the covers, and Cas with an arm around the man’s shoulders, chest pillowing his charge’s head. This isn’t normal, not by a longshot… but Sammy’s out, Cas is surprisingly warm, Dean is cold and stuffy and sniffly and tired and his nose is sore from rubbing all day and he’s really enjoying downtime without anything apocalyptic and sue him if this is a problem.

Dean’s squints, trying to make out the colorful, now blurry images on the T.V. Castiel’s gaze fall down to him. “ _Ha’gitshh!”_

“G –”

_“HAA’gitssh!!”_

There is a beat of silence, then, “God bless you, Dean.”

They were uncovered sneezes, hazing against Castiel’s trench coat. The first few times, Dean tried to remember to cover his mouth, but they always came on too quickly. And now, sleepy as he is, he keeps forgetting to issue common courtesy. Sam would be bitching at him by now to start smothering them in tissues or his arm because of the germs, but Cas never commented on the mess.

Dean sniffles, humming a sort of thanks in the back of his itchy throat while he reaches across his companion’s torso, fumbling blindly for the tissue box on the other side. Having seen the man blow his nose many times before this, Castiel picks up the box and nestles it between them instead. He watched Dean scrunch his face as he blows forcefully, and Cas rubs his thumb just a little at the edge of his arm.

“Is that painful?” he asks. His blue eyes are liquid, and Dean swears Sammy trained him in the art of The Eyes. Grinning, Dean gives a dry sniff, crumbles his tissue, and tosses it on the floor.

“No. Just annoying.” His congestion is lingering, but less pronounced after the blow. The tingling from the dry air causes him to gasp and sneeze yet again, coughing a bit afterward. At least the cold seems to be in his head and not in his lungs.

“And that? Does that hurt?”

“Sneezing?” Dean feels himself smirk wider, amused that the angel has yet to experience any of this. Being what he is, Cas probably had not and never would know the plague that was the common cold. Never know what it felt like to have an itch in your nose.

“Yes,” Castiel confirms. Dean starts a little, having drifted off in thought.

“Oh…Nah, it’s actually kind of relieving after you do it.”

There’s a comfortable silence before Dean yawns, finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. He sniffles, thick. Castiel plucks a few tissues and holds them out to Dean, his grip on the man a little tighter because of his concern. Dean scoffs and takes the offering, tenting them around his nose. “Sorry…I’b kinda tired.”

“It’s all right,” Castiel says. His deep, crackling-gravel tone carries assurance, and Dean sinks into it. As they both adjust a little, snuggling up to an angle more suited to sleep than television, he can feel Cas’s stubbly cheek press into his hair. Dean needs to show him how to shave since his body functions are booting up from the drained mojo. This close, he can smell Cas’s musky scent – something sharp like peppermint and rain. His nostrils flare.

 _“Ha’gitshuh!_... ugh, sorry—”

Castiel hushes him by slipping a soft hand over his eyes, skin of his palm just a little cool. “I’m not bothered,” he said. “Just rest.”

And so Dean does.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Sam bustles through the door with an armful of groceries, he isn’t expecting to find Dean snoring against Castiel’s neck, the angel himself blinking sleepily at what looks to be an infomercial for a food processor. Blue orbs, bright but getting fuzzy, train on Sam as he shuts the door with his foot. The younger Winchester notes Cas’s tense posture, the snotty state of his trench coat, and his thumb gently caressing Dean’s temple. Those two were there, unmoving, for a long time. While it pleases him to see his brother so comfortable and sound asleep, Sam isn’t sure how to address the situation.

However, like most things Castiel, there’s not really much to address but Sam’s own surprise. The angel is perfectly comfortable, seemingly content, perhaps a little glad to see his other Winchester back safe in the motel room with sustenance.

“Hello, Sam,” he says, his rumbling bass sounding especially like a purr. Sam feels himself grinning out of the corner of his mouth while he settles down groceries. He never thought he’d hear Cas sounding so smug and proud of himself over something as ridiculous as cuddling his sick brother in bed.

“Hey, Cas. You hungry?”

“Very.”

They keep their voices light as Sam doles out a decent lunch-dinner. Since Dean is sound asleep and looking to stay that way, they quietly eat as the TV continues to drone. Sam pecks at a Greek salad he made from scratch, while he has Castiel try his first PB&J with baked barbeque chips. Cas makes a point to inform Sam the meal is not as pleasant as hamburgers, but it is satisfactory.

It is strangely satisfying to have a conversation with Castiel. It’s Sam’s first opportunity to have one at length, and about such mundane concepts too. Nothing otherworldly or apocalypse-esque. Just discussions about perceptions of taste, the general purpose of food, and occasionally Dean.

Cas keeps absently stroking the skin and hair at Dean’s temple through the entire meal, as if doing so is the only thing keeping the man asleep. But after his last bite of food, the angel presses his hand firmly to Dean’s forehead, looking down at him and furrowing his brow. Then blue eyes find Sam, practically glowing with worry.

“Sam, I think he has a fever.”

 _Shit_ , Sam thinks. He was hoping they could scoot by without anything too serious. He thieves one of those cheap, one-use thermometers out of the bulk box he had purchased, fiddling with the wrapper as he approaches Dean’s bed. When he looks up, Cas struck him with such a heart-wrenching look that Sam has to fight not to pat him on the head. Instead, he motions for Cas to move his hand so he can feel Dean’s forehead for himself. Hmm, a little on the warm side, but definitely not hot enough to be scary.

Sam takes Dean by the shoulder and gently squeezes. Better his brother be awake before they try any invasive maneuvers. “It’s probably not anything to worry about,” he says.

They both observe, one patient and the other tense, as Dean comes softly out of slumber. It’s a welcome change from all the abrupt, _Holy-shit-I’m-awake_ kind of reactions they seem to have. Sam credits it to Castiel’s insulating, protective arm around Dean’s body, anchoring and keeping him safe. Dean blinks, muzzy, always looking like a bleary child up from a nap no matter what he does. It’s only exacerbated by his sniffly nose and fevered eyes.

“Mm, whazzat?”

Sam watches Castiel smile with only half his mouth, fond. It makes Sam smile too. Dean, fuzzy and now suspicious, glares at the two of them. “Whad?” A beat of silence passes, where Sam softens his eyes and bats his eyelashes a few times, grin expanding. And that mockery alerts Dean to his very snuggly position against Castiel’s side. He flops like a fish on a dock.

“Son of a bitch!”

Castiel reachs out to try and steady him, paranoid he might flail himself over the side of the bed, but is only met with resistance. The attentive angel gets a strong elbow to the jaw, head snapping back with a grunt, and Dean manages to roll himself out of the sheets and onto the floor. Sam sighs. Back to Mr. Macho again.

“Fucki’g creepy! Watchin’ be sleeb, I—…” He pauses here to shake himself with a sneeze or two. They break over his lap, almost with a righteous fury. Afterward he saws the side of an arm and hand under his nostrils. Sam grimaces.

“God bless you, Dean,” Castiel says, a little more tentatively now that he had been cracked in the chin for trying to be courteous earlier. Sam glances at him, and the hurt in those blue eyes doesn’t look like it came from Dean’s elbow. Dean might have caught it too, judging by the way he swallows. Sam shoves the thermometer at him.

“Check it, man,” he says. “Don’t want you fainting on us from over-exertion.”

“I don’t _faint,”_ Dean insists. But he did as he is told, so Sam doesn’t bother fighting him. In the silence, Sam busies himself with heating up Dean’s soup. It has little chunks of beef in it, so hopefully that’s manly enough for him. Castiel, who had been laying in the same position for quite a long time, eases off the bed and stretched. It was so human of him that both brothers stare longer than was necessary. That’s when Sam notices the tanned stains on the trench coat.

“Ugh, Dean!”

Dean blinks, quirking his brows as he sits there with the thermometer between his lips.

“Did you _drool_ all over him or something?”

Dean looks affronted, ready to lash out, but he holds his tongue in order to get the temperature reading. He’d rather forfeit talking for two more seconds than start over.

Castiel, ever the little helper, blandly picks up the slack. “Yes, while he was asleep.” Awkwardly looking down at himself, he pulls a little at the fabric so he could see it better. “Though most of these are from his sneezes while awake.”

Sam nearly gags. The thermometer chirps, and Dean wrenches it out of his mouth.

“It’s not my fault he’s too stupid dodge!”

“It is your fault for being too rude to cover!”

“It’s really not a problem,” Castiel assures, tugging the lapels of his coat to secure it back to its original position. “It does not bother me.”

 _“Germs,_ Castiel,” Sam sighs. The angel, by bare centimeters, tips his head to the left. The familiar furrow of his brow wrinkles, eyes narrowing a fraction as he contemplated this. Dean’s temperature is hovering at about 100°F, which isn’t anything to fret over. As long as they keep it below 102 or so, Sam would be happy.

“Infection, Cas,” he clarifies, tossing Dean’s thermometer into the bin. “Catching it. Exposing yourself directly to Dean like that can get you sick.”

“But I am not susceptible to human illnesses,” Castiel promises. Sam might have bought it too, if the guy didn’t have a little lingering jelly at the corner of his mouth from the sandwich and smelled like he needed to shower.

“If you need to eat and sleep,” Sam says as he steps over a sulky Dean, “then odds are you can catch a cold.”

No one takes it seriously, though. Not until they’re back on the road.


	2. Then Cas

It took just two days for Dean to shake off the worst of it. Much to Cas’s apparent disappointment, there was no more cuddling on the bed during drowsy afternoons. No more soft moments. Sam tried to convince Castiel that this was only because Dean was embarrassed, but most of his promises fell flat and dead when Dean pointedly avoided so much as looking at the angel. They are only miles away from Bobby’s when Sam finally decides to bring it up.

“Dean.”

“No, Sammy. Nope.”

“Dean—”

“I said no, dude. We’re not doing this. Impala is a chick-flick free zone.”

“You can’t just write him off, Dean. It’s not fair.”

“Would you keep it down?!”

They are whisper-shouting on the front bench while Castiel snores softly in the back. He had fallen asleep some a hundred miles back, forehead resting against the window, and it’s a testament to Dean’s fondness that he hadn’t nailed Cas in the head with a quarter and told him to get his greasy skin off the glass.

“He’s asleep. He can’t hear us.”

“I know,” Dean says. He can tell because of the relaxed, deep way Cas is breathing. The faint, angelic snores alerting the Winchesters that this is a state he wasn’t faking. Though there’s a heavy edge to those inhales that rubs Dean the wrong way. Sam follows Dean’s eyes in the review, turning back to stare at the slumbering pile of trench coat in the back. They had finally managed to pry it from him for a wash at the Laundromat, so it’s stain free.

Sam shifts forward again, right arm resting on the edge of the Impala’s door. “Just…be honest with him. With yourself too.” Dean grips the wheel a little tighter. Sam glances over at him. “Okay?”

“Whatever,” Dean snipes. Just what the hell is Sam trying to do, anyway? Play matchmaker? So what if they had sort of lounged next to one another on the same bed and one of them had fallen asleep? He was fevered at the time; he couldn’t be held accountable for his actions. As if to remind him of the stupid reason he and Cas cuddled in the first place, Dean’s nose flares with the dregs of his cold.

 _“ **HAA’** gitschh’uh!!_” He jerks forward, thunking his head on the steering wheel from the force of it. Sam snickers to himself, hiding his smile by looking out his window. “Sud of a bitch.”

“Mmm.” Castiel stirs in the back, his clothes rustling against the leather of the seat. “God… bless you, Dean.” It’s a sleepy, muttered casualty, his voice thick and raspy. Dean freezes, peeking over his shoulder for a moment as Cas licks and smacks his lips, stilling again afterward.

“Awww,” Sam croons. Dean has to resist bopping him in the nose. But even so he can’t fight the smile threatening on his own lips. His angel is too damn adorable, even if he wouldn’t say it aloud.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The rest of the ride to Bobby’s, all twenty minutes of it, was a companionable silence. When they finally pulled into the car lot, the brothers were ready for a decent bed and at least a day off the road. They had a big show to gear up for, after all.

“You go ahead and haul in,” Dean says over the creak of his door opening. “I’ll get the cargo.” And if Dean deliberately ignores the obnoxiously knowing look Sam shoots him, that’s his business. He sidles around to the side of the car, easing the door open in case Cas (still asleep) starts falling out. “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

But Cas doesn’t budge. Just keeps on with his cute little snores, head lulled against the back of the seat. Dean wonders absently if his neck will have a crick in it when he wakes. Wanting to hurry it along (and also because he had yet to see Castiel’s groggy good morning face), Dean taps his shoulder a few times.

“Up and at ‘em, soldier.” When that doesn’t elicit a change either, Dean grabs Cas’s shoulder and gives it a firm shake. Once is all it takes, and the sleeping angel jostles into the waking world. His blue eyes are unfocused in a way Dean hasn’t seen them before, blinky and roving as he absorbs his surroundings.

His brown hair is all mussed from sleep, and damn it if it isn’t the sweetest, most charming thing in the world. On a whim, Dean reaches and tousled it, leaving his hand there even as Cas looks up. When no one says anything, Dean quirks his brows.

“Earth to angel, you with me?”

Castiel squints up at him but Dean’s smile falls away, stitch by stitch, as Cas’s expression starts to falter. He blinks a few times in a row, spastic; his nose twitches once to the side. Dean’s eyebrows rise high up his forehead as he observes – it was like Cas wasn’t even aware of what his facial muscles were doing.

His eyes are closed, lips parted, head tipping back just a little as he wrinkles his nose. The visage was hypnotic. Dean can just barely pick up a few little hitches in Castiel’s breathing, and then he clenches with a short, light cough. Wait, was he about to…?

Suddenly Castiel’s voice pitches high with a vulnerable, gasped inhale, and then he convulses with a fittish, “ _eht’chhoo!”_

Dean both sees and feels how it shakes Castiel’s entire body, since his hand is still in his hair. It amuses him that an Angel of the Lord would have himself taken over by a wimpy little sneeze like that.

“You sneeze like a kitten, dude,” Dean says with a chuckle. Such is his amusement that it doesn’t hit him until Castiel chokes out a second, and a third, each one jarring him and jiggling the car. Castiel sniffles after and sinks back against the seat, eyes closing briefly as he swallows.

“Oh, shit.” After a pause, Dean’s hand migrates to press against Castiel’s forehead, first the back then the front. Cas turns a drained, blue stare Dean’s way. The hunter can feel the angel frowning beneath his palm. “That’s a fever, buddy.”

“It is not of import.” While Castiel isn’t clogged with congestion, the muted, rusty quality to the normally sonorous timbre is enough to indicate a sore throat and swollen sinuses. It sends a cold arrow straight into Dean’s gut, and the feeling spreads up and out.

“The hell it ain’t,” Dean says as he reaches in and lugs Cas up by fistfuls of his trench. The change in position has him stumbling, and Dean feels his cheeks get hot when their chests meet. Geez, that’s all it took for him to blush like a shy seventh grader? Classy, Dean. The blush only burns deeper, branding him, when Cas pierces him with those hazy blue eyes of his. The angel stares, contemplating, swaying just slightly, and after a beat of silence he sniffles. It kickstarts Dean.

“How long?”

“It…what?” Cas frowns up at Dean, and the hunter (not for the first time) is struck with the suspicion they got assigned the baby angel. One of Dean’s rough hands cups the back of Cas’s neck. He doesn’t like how hot it feels.

“Sick. How long have you been feeling sick?”

Cas, now that he’s awake, can’t seem to keep his eyes open for very long. They fall closed while he’s thinking, and Dean can see a crystal-point of pain work into the angel’s right temple, judging by the way he twitches that eye and cheek. Headache.

“It is hard to remember,” Cas mumbles, sounding less and less like an angelic warrior and more like a sleepy child. It was twisting muscles of pity in Dean’s chest that he didn’t know were there. “Possibly two days?”

Guilt buoys up, a floating core of lead in Dean’s stomach. Echoes of Sammy’s bitching about covering his mouth when he sneezed or coughed rebound in his head, each time a little more prickly and painful than the last. He got his angel sick. Shit. The angel in question gives a soft, light noise—an unwilling cough at the back of his throat—and his face tenses gradually. Dean knows what’s coming before it hits him, and has just enough time to side-step.

 _“Ehht’choo!”_ And the dry, itchy coughs that follow don’t make Dean feel any better about the situation. If Cas had been feeling bad for two days, the hunter doesn’t want to know how long the guy’s been battling a sore throat, or sinus pressure. Now that he thought about it, Castiel’s normally somber and silent disposition had increased the last few days. Quieter, less involved in their discussions, a little pale, drowsy…and really clingy, which makes Dean feel like a giant dick for not noticing earlier.

He could recall one instance, just yesterday, when Castiel had approached Dean while they were stopped at a gas station filling up. Sam was in the mini-mart, stocking up on water and Doritos (“the big bag, Sammy. And look for decent pie!”), while Dean held the gas nozzle to the tank.

“Dean?”

And now Dean realizes that was odd, since Castiel never says his name with a question mark. But Dean of yesterday, still embarrassed from all the sick-day cuddling Sam wouldn’t let go, said, “What, Cas?”

The trench coat consumed him; Castiel suddenly seemed so small, his angelic presence no longer strong enough to fill all the intimidating space between his vessel’s slight body and the big, ill-fitting clothes. Dean had been so focused on the gas, so intent not to look into those baby blue beacons, he hadn’t seen the pallor on Cas’s cheeks. The lavender impressions just under his eyes. The painful way he winced when he swallowed.

“I… I am…”

What Dean had taken at the time for a nerdy-angel moment, Dean now could see was embarrassment. Castiel, strong, powerful, useful Angel of the Lord was not felled by a cold. And would of course never admit to such a thing happening. There, at the gas station, Cas was trying very hard to confess weakness to his friend.

The mini-mart’s doors “wee-waah”ed, and out came Sam. Dean shut down whatever chick-flicky conversation had been bound to follow by hanging up the nozzle and slapping the cap back on the tank. Shuffled by the angel and flinched away from the fingers that tried to grip his shirt as he slid past. Griped for Castiel to get his feathery ass back in the Impala so they could blow that popsicle stand. Didn’t care that Castiel didn’t understand that reference.

Today, no wonder Cas thinks his health wasn’t of import. Dean wants to punch himself.

 _“heht’choo!”_ Cas’s adorably heartbreaking kitty sneezes are doing that just fine, though. Each one is a swift kick to his gut, which is already turning slow somersaults of shame. This is the dude who lifted him out of Hell. Dean owes him more than he gives him.

“All right, sniffles,” Dean finds himself saying, snaking an arm around Castiel’s waist. “Let’s get you inside, huh?”

Castiel’s compliance scares Dean. Usually the angel puts up his dukes when he’s being coddled, preferring instead to deny frailness or ignore it completely. The fact that he’s putty in Dean’s hands, occasionally tipping too far to one side as they cross the fifteen steps from the car to the door, skims Dean’s heart on ice.

“Cas, you okay?” Because if Dean doesn’t know the honest answer, he might pass out.

“Yes, Dean.”

At least he’s coherent. Good sign, good sign. Still, Dean hates this. It’s so…it’s just not the Castiel he met in that barn so long ago. Unshakable, collected, distant, stately. The Cas he has against his hip now is endearing…easily confused…probably afraid. Nothing an angel is supposed to be. Maybe that’s why he’s on Team Free Will. It’s where all the misfits go.

Sam catches them at the door wiping his hands with a dishtowel, eyes widening and then creasing into those powerful, liquid orbs of concern. Castiel should feel honored that he gets a look bestowed by the Eyes. Like it’s really that much of a feat anyway. Stub your toe hard enough, squawk about it, and Sam’ll probably give you the Eyes.

“Everything…all right?” Sam can see that someone is supporting someone, and he’s uneasy to find out why. Dean takes a breath to tell him, and then it gets stuck in his throat. He huffs a sigh. This is going to be such an “I Told You So.” Sammy, eyes more potent by the minute, prompts them with his snappy raise of brows.

Cas decides to answer for them, giving one of those telling, breathy coughs. Dean, with reflexes he can thank hunting for later, seizes the towel from Sam’s hands and holds it over Cas’s face. The following volley of sneezes is muffled with a chorus of coughs to back it up. While it’s pretty damn uncomfortable and embarrassing, Dean would rather hold a towel over Cas’s nose than threaten his baby brother with the same illness he had been slogging through.

Afterward, Cas reaches up and forces Dean’s hand down to free his face, exasperated. Rather than deal with a pissy angel, Dean detaches his gaze from Cas and looks at his brother.

“Cas is sick.”

“I told you so.” Dean expected this.

“Yeah, yeah, bitch.”

“Jerk.”

Either annoyed by the brothers’ banter or in a hurry to make himself as scarce as possible, Castiel teeter-totters a few steps forward and nearly buckles. Sam’s strong, long arms catch him before he can pitch himself to the floor. Cas pinches his brow, trying to pry free.

“Sam, this is unnecessary,” he says, voice like sandpaper. Sam’s eyes dial up a few notches on the dewy scale. “But thank you.” It’s clear to Dean right away that Castiel is embarrassed, dodgy and stiff like he had been in the brothel. With an even heavier hit from the DUH hammer, Dean gathers that the angel feels comfortable displaying vulnerability, if he can’t help it, in front of only one person: his charge.

As the younger Winchester allows Cas to struggle out of his arms, he flashes Dean a bitchface.  
Then they swivel to look at Cas, who’s standing there pitifully red-eyed and runny-nosed, the cuffs of his trench coat concealing everything up to his fingers. His hair is more windblown than the day Dean met him, which is a memory that burns sharp. Absently, Dean brings a hand up to his shoulder—the one with the scar.

Cas sucks back a cough and jerks with one of his awkward angel sneezes, staggering. That’s as good of an excuse as any. Ignoring Sam’s school-teacher gaze, just as judgmental as a detention warden, Dean swoops in to slip a hand under Cas’s right arm.

“How about you and I,” he says, directing his angel toward the bathroom, “get comfortable?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Aside from the offer sounding way more sexual than Dean intended, the venture is an overall success. He wrestles Cas into the shower, leaves some of his own clean laundry on the toilet seat, and clears the hell out to wait for him to finish. Bobby, informed of the sick-angel situation by Sam, is more annoyed about the turn of events than anything. Before the old man even grits through a single cross word, Dean’s puffing up in defense.

“It’s not like he can help it,” he gruffs from his kicked-back position in the recliner. “So don’t anybody give him any shit about it.”

Sam snorts, and Dean goes from feeling only mildly self-conscious to really fucking self-conscious. It’s a good thing he has a cold beer resting on his thigh. Beers makes everything better. Bobby regards him coolly, eyes wide with disdain.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Dean’s jaw clenches. “I’m not gonna say anything to your angel about catchin’ the sniffles.”

As if on cue, the bathroom door opens and all three men hear a faint sniffle. And then another. It was a relief the angel knew how to hold back the tide of his mucus properly, but Dean sighs when that means Castiel probably doesn’t know how to blow his nose.

“Deand?”

Again with the gravelly, bleating question mark. It clamps on Dean’s heart every time, pulling it somewhere down into his ribcage. Chewing at his bottom lip for a moment, he calls out from his place in the chair.

“In here, Cas.”

Castiel drifts in from around the corner, appearing almost shy. And fucking hell, he’s rocking the flannel plaid pants and cotton t-shirt. He dried his hair haphazardly, so it’s just stuck up in all directions, and despite the steam of the shower Cas’s voice has sunk into the pits of stuffiness.

“Whad should I do with this?” He’s holding the bath towel out like an offering, and Dean sighs as he gets up, beer now placed aside, to receive it. Only when he’s close enough does he see that his angel is shuddering like a vibrating string. Warning bells explode into a chorus inside Dean’s head.

“Whoa, what’s with the Magic Fingers impression?” he says, trying to lighten his own sinking stomach as he plasters a hand on Castiel’s forehead. It’s all dry heat. Not good. He’s about to escort Castiel to the couch and disappear into the kitchen to privately freak the hell out, but Cas tenses with one of his reluctant, panting coughs, and Dean knows that that means. “Cover it—!”

Dutifully, like the soldier that he is, Castiel lurches into the towel he’s holding in a perfect execution of what Dean had him do earlier. The hunter remembers that for all their adorableness, angel sneezes are doozies, so he plants a firm hand on Cas’s shoulder.

There’s a total of eight, yes eight, tremors into the towel, and then the angel resurfaces with a distinct light-headedness. Dean’s hands rearrange so that he has one on his friend’s chest, and the other at his lower back. Only now, with Cas in his arms, does he recognize just how small he is. The coughing is instantaneous afterwards, and the hollow sounds of them thump against Dean’s hand and into his bones.

“Damn,” Dean says. Tries to laugh. Fails. “Bless you, buddy. Here… just – … let’s sit down before you throw out a wing or something.” He all but lobs the shivering pile of angel on the couch, which Sam hurriedly vacates, and looks around for a blanket of some sort. When he’s on the verge of a panic, his moose of a baby brother clomps into the room with a comforter he’s pulled off a guestroom bed, and drapes it over Castiel. All three men regard him, Bobby looking on from the doorway of the study.

Castiel peeks out from where’s he’s been dumped, blue eyes and raven hair the only part of him visible, save for one bare foot that sticks out from the bottom corner of the blanket’s reach. He’s sprawled all right, but seems too tense to be comfortable. And who wouldn’t be? No one’s in their element. The world starts turning again when Bobby goes into the other room and begins rustling at his desk, papers shuffling, and Sam quickly finds something interesting on the ceiling to look at.

Castiel, on display and very much aware of it, isn’t meeting anyone’s eyes either. Dean watches the way he shifts, twitching and restless, and knows Castiel only gets fidgety when he’s embarrassed or uncertain about something. Still quivering under the blanket with chills, though. A couple chesty coughs boot Dean into his sick-Sammy mode, and he suddenly doesn’t care that he had spooned the guy less than a week ago. Cas is ill, and it’s Dean’s turn.

“Sammy,” he barks. Sam zips up at attention, surprised. “Thermometer?”

Sam lopes off into the wilderness of Bobby’s house while Dean kneels by the couch, settling a hand on Castiel’s chest and feeling the wheezy breaths. Nothing wet, but Cas had let this go a little farther than Dean had when he was sick. And Cas hadn’t let his charge out of his sight that entire time. Paid for it too.

“How you feeling, man?” he asks, and Cas fixes him with one of those electrifying blue stares from where he peeks out under the comforter. Right as he opens his mouth to respond, Dean interrupts. “For real. Level with me.”

The gives the angel pause, eyes drifting to the floor before he squirms against the couch cushions. Dean’s hand stays on his chest, a warm presence where Castiel feels cold. “Undwell. I feel undwell.”

“No shit,” Dean scoffs, and then scouts the living room for a box of tissues. By some miracle, there’s a half-empty box wedged behind a lamp. After plucking a few, he holds them up to Cas until the angel hesitantly takes them. “You sound like it too. Go on, blow.”

Heaving a titanic breath and brow trenching with the effort, Castiel does as he is told. The only sound in what felt like the whole house is the gravel-in-blender gurgle of a stuffed nose getting emptied. Dean smirks because Cas gives the same forceful attempt of a child. Face crumbling up for the blow and then getting all blinky and sniffly after. Fucking adorable.

“I swear, dude,” Dean says as he holds the waste bin up for the garbage. “You’ve got to be the baby angel.”

After a final sniff, Castiel fixes Dean with that familiar, befuddled stare. It’s doubly effective with the pink, chafed nose. “Baby angel?”

“Yeah, like…” Dean shrugs as he tries to find alternate wording, watching those baby blue eyes slowly turn smitey. “The youngest of the flock. The greenhorn. The inexperienced rookie.” Yeah, definitely getting smitey. Riling up Cas? Best pastime. “Baby angel.”

“Dean, I am Angel—”

“—of the Lord, sure. The _littlest_ angel of the L—”

Cas thumps a fist onto the couch, and Dean bites his lip to keep from laughing right in his face. Giving the guy a cold and calling him a baby apparently equivocates to a perfectly adequate reason for an angelic tantrum. Though even when sick and de-mojoed, those blue pearls still carry serious ass-kickery.

“I have soldiered through countless wars, witnessed the moment of human’s creation, and have raised you from perdition!” Castiel punctuates this with another little thud of his fist on the cushions, hissy and adamant that everyone understand. It’s at this point that Dean realizes he’s hit a nerve. “I am older than you will ever hope to be, Dean Winchester – !”

There’s a pause when Cas interrupts himself with one of his I’m-about-to-sneeze coughs. Dean can see the surging need of it start to erupt across Castiel’s face: his brows twitch and trench, nose flicking to one side just once before his mouth drops open to snatch a quick breath.

Dean leans to the side right as he flinches through a short fit, never seeming to sneeze just once. Reminds Dean of Sam, who trended toward the same pattern. It makes him want to pat Castiel, reassure him or something. He gets halfway. Self-conscious, the hunter shoves his hand back down to his side just as Sam comes thundering around the corner.

“Bless you!” he says, evidently surprised that such a loud noise could from the normally somber character Castiel sports. He forks over the thermometer at Dean’s request, who jams it into Cas’s mouth without waiting for permission, and then sticks around to see the reading.

The awkward silence is chock full of a lot of throat clearing, which is superb and not at all uncomfortable. Sam will flash Dean puppy eyes every so often, though Dean has no idea what they’re for. Or is at least pretending not to. Because if it’s about feelings, he’s not doing it. Not with his brother in the room anyway. When the thermometer finally beeps, it’s a blessing.

“102.9…Awesome.”

“Is it?” Cas asks. Dean tosses the thermometer onto the sofa.

“No, not really.”

“Then why did you…?”

“Sarcasm, Cas,” Sam assures with only a little bit of fond exasperation. Still, even with Cas’s cluelessness lightening the mood, the numbers don’t comfort Dean. That’s a pretty high fever for a cold; he’s hoping it’s just from strain and not some kind of more serious illness. When Sam says something about cold medicine in the bathroom cabinet, Dean moves to stand up.

And he would have gone too, if a twitch of fingers hadn’t caught his eye. Right as he moved to stand, Castiel’s nearest hand jerked. Just a little bit. Other reminders of Cas’s recent clinginess flush through Dean’s inner eye, and he squats back down beside the couch. One of his hands comes up to rest on Castiel’s forehead again, green eyes locking with blue, and Sam slips out of the living room to get the medicine without being asked.

The pressure in the room dissolves almost instantly. Dean stands again, and smirks as those blue eyes follow him with an unblinking expectancy. Begging but not begging. Still kind of pissed off about the baby thing, but too needy to hang onto it. With his knee, he bumps Castiel’s arm.

“Scoot,” he says. Cas does, and pretty soon they find themselves tangled on the couch together—Dean sitting upright on the far end, and Cas reclined with his head resting against Dean’s thighs. The silence isn’t that awkward this time because Dean fills it with the soft, feathery noises of Castiel’s hair as he shifts his fingers through the unruly locks; Cas fills it with a sniffle every now and again.

“Sorry I got you sick,” Dean says softly. He hasn’t said it all this time, and with Cas’s fevered brow against his jeans, he feels the need to say it now. And mean it. There’s a soft, hitching cough, and Dean knows what that means. Castiel tries to talk through it anyway.

“It – … _ehh’tchoo!...hih’tishhoo!_ ” Liquidy sniffle, and Dean doesn’t mind the damp spot on his leg. “The contamination was worth the – … _hii’tshuu!”_ Castiel’s getting better at realizing when they’re coming, and understands that they come in crowds. Finally, Dean notes with some kind of misplaced entertainment, it’s starting to annoy the angel. Anything that annoys the angel is okay in Dean’s book. And the sneezes are cute as all hell, in the figurative sense. Not the real sense. God no.

“Worth the personal time,” Castiel finishes, sighing as he does so. Dean ruffles his hair, chuckling.

“So you’re a cuddler?” Figures Cas would be snuggly. The guy’s not a professional with body language, but Dean’s convinced that his standoffishness is caused more by his lack of proper social graces rather than actual aversion to physical contact. The evidence continues to pile up as Cas nuzzles his nose, absently and sleepily, against Dean’s lap.

“Clarify your term and I’ll answer,” he says.

“Nevermind.”

Dean can feel himself smiling, but can’t make it stop. Yeah, it was the apocalypse, his brother was probably going to become the devil and then throw himself into an eternal pit for the rest of eternity, and that was the best case scenario… but Sammy’s in another room, Dean is surprisingly content, Cas is cold and stuffy and sniffly and tired and his nose is probably sore from rubbing all day and they're really enjoying downtime and sue him if this is a problem.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It’s while Castiel’s dozing that Dean stumbles across a useless but priceless little gold-nugget of a document no doubt accidently left here during some heavenly exchange of information. Literally, an angel family tree. Or at least a list of approximate birth-order. Oldest at the top, youngest at the bottom.

Most of it’s in Enochian, but Dean’s seen enough of it to at least know a few symbols. There’s a combination of them at the very end of the page, the last name on the list, that causes him to grin outright. Oh, sweet mama, what a glorious piece of blackmail he has.

Dean steals a glance down at Castiel, eyes appraising: breathing through his mouth, cute snores now a little deeper, louder, the red, chapped nose, the completely out of control hair. He looks back to Sam, raising the paper up to show it off. “Well, whaddya know?”

Sam raises his eyebrows, questioning.

Dean smirks, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the sickly, sleeping mound of covers across his lap. “They really did stick us with the baby angel.”

_fin~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I adore the headcannon of Castiel being the youngest angel <33 (even though that title could arguably go to Samandriel). JUST. TOO. PRECIOUS. Thanks for reading~! Please review if you have the time :D


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